


Indelible

by willowsandwonders



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: AU typical warnings, Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Fake AH Crew, Multi, background Gavin/Lindsay/Meg, such as violence and injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:58:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9521741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowsandwonders/pseuds/willowsandwonders
Summary: Indelible [in’delǝb(e)l] - Not able to be forgotten or removed.Ray falls in love and leaves. That’s the long and short of it, really. He has to get out of the crew, so he does. But it takes time. And there’s attachments, vines and cords of shit like feelings and loyalty, and those make the process a million times messier for everyone involved.But, in the end, he runs away. And in his place he leaves behind indelible marks, memories, and Michael.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story that I honestly never intended to write. It started half a year ago with me learning a new word and doing a little writing warm up with it, grew into a much larger undertaking than I could’ve expected, and didn’t stop until I’d written and rewritten it entirely. I had a blast writing this, and I hope you all enjoy it as well!

There’s blood on Ray’s hands. Figuratively, yeah, but also literally. It’s warm and sticky and getting under his fingernails. He’s not sure how much of it is his. Ducking his head down, he tries to breathe without inhaling that nasty copper smell. And, okay,  _ mistake,  _ because it’s on the front of his shirt too. 

He avoids groundwork for a fucking  _ reason,  _ but yet here he is. Standing alone in a too-big warehouse, stacks of pallets looming around him like mountains that are probably going to collapse on him at any second. There’s blood splashed all over his shoes, and the silence is only broken by the distant sounds filtering in through his earpiece of crackling fire and exhilarated shouts as the others finish up their distraction work. He doesn't remember where they're all at exactly, just that they were going to set some fires to prevent people from keeping too close of an eye on his target.

Ray shoots a glance at the corpse in the corner of his eye and bile rises up in his throat. The final result is messy. He’s not squeamish, not really in a profession where he  _ can  _ be, just-- 

It’s all too visceral, too  _ close.  _ He works best at a distance, not running all over the city trying to lure in some random guy just to slit his throat in a back alley warehouse, all with his closest friends shouting in his ear about it. Not fun. 

“I’m done,” he tells them, only half concentrating, if that. This isn't the first time he's had to do shit like this. Apparently he's efficient, and good with knives.

_ I’m done.  _ All at once he feels the physical force of that thought bubbling up under his skin, in his  _ blood.  _

A bullet punches through one of the windows, cutting the air in front of him. He drops to a crouch, frantically cursing under his breath. Apparently the distraction didn’t work as well as they’d hoped, then. He weaves around the pallets and makes his way over to the wall, trying to stay out of the windows’ view. 

“I need out right now,” he gasps, already checking how much ammo he has. He shoves down the part of his brain that latches onto the duality of that sentence. He can freak out about all of his own bullshit  _ later,  _ if he even fucking survives to have that luxury. 

He takes aim at one of the warehouse lights and fires. If they want to shoot at him, might as well make it a bit more difficult. He takes out the other lights around him in quick succession, trying to ignore the bullets flying through the windows to answer him. The warehouse plunges into darkness, dim streetlights further down the road silhouetting a few of the people shooting. His gun’s unfamiliar and kind of shitty, taken from his target’s pocket. Certainly not the right weapon to go all Annie Oakley on their asses. 

“I’m en-route,” Ryan’s voice says in his ear. A tiny flutter of hope rises in his chest. 

A minute later, Matt chimes in with, “Police are responding to shots fired.” The good feeling dissolves.

If Ray concentrates he can make out sirens in the distance that definitely aren’t heading towards the fires. Bastards were probably tipped off that something was gonna go down tonight. He leans his head back against the wall, screwing his eyes shut, and tries to tamp down the panic that should definitely  _ not  _ be there. He’s cut it closer than this, done worse than this, let alone the fact that he  _ never  _ lets himself get all worked up on a job. 

But then again, all he’s  _ supposed  _ to be is the sniper. Up on a roof, playing a part in the action but high above it,  _ that’s  _ where he’s meant to be. Not about to die in some dingy warehouse, covered in blood.

Red and blue lights splash through the holes in the windows and dance across the warehouse walls. The gunfire ramps up again as the police and the rival crew go at it. He bites his lip so hard he tastes blood, clinging to his gun. No matter who wins the fight, he’s fucked. All that’ll change is who fires the gun. 

It’s probably a stupid feeling to cling to, but he just desperately wants this to be  _ over.  _ No more jobs where his only choices are to take an up close and really fucking dangerous hit or disappoint his entire crew. If he even survives this, maybe he could ask Geoff to lay off on assigning hits like these, but how long would that really last? Nothing changes in Los Santos, you just go with the flow and fight until you’re dead. 

A stray bullet comes close enough for him to feel the wind off it. There’s no point in trying to return fire. He has no way of telling how many people are even  _ out  _ there, and he only has the one pistol. Let alone the fact that he has no body armor. He loosens his grip on his gun, goes to tell the crew that it’s over for him, but then suddenly Ryan’s voice is in his ear. 

“I’m out back by the loading bay. Fucking  _ hurry. _ ”

Ray takes off, shots whizzing around him as the firefight outside dwindles enough for them to remember who they were trying to shoot. Bullets cracking against the concrete, he sprints towards Ryan’s car like his legs can carry him out of the city and into a new life. 

\---

When they get back to the penthouse, Ray tries to do what he always does. Scrubs off the blood, puts on some clean clothes, and does his best not to think about it. Normally he just turns on a video game and lets himself get lost in it, but tonight he can’t even manage  _ that.  _

He has to clench his fists as tight as he can just to keep from throwing his stupid DS at the wall. It can't hold his attention. Nothing can, he just feels cold and shivery and  _ horrible  _ all over.

Michael finds him like that, staring blankly at the wall of his room, thoughts a hundred miles away. Ray comes back to himself a little at the sudden intrusion, though. He sees Michael give him a once-over in the corner of his eye. Apparently even after cleaning up he must look pretty bad, because when he turns to face him, Michael frowns. But then the look’s gone and Michael is forcing a grin onto his face.

“It’s Lad’s night!” he declares. 

If Ray’s honest, he isn’t feeling it. Would actually much rather prefer to let himself be numb for a little longer, but. Wallowing around during their customary post-heist celebrations is kind of pathetic. And he’s never been that good at saying no to Michael. 

So instead of blowing him off, Ray hauls himself off the floor, cracks his back, and trails behind Michael towards his room, the unofficial ‘Lad pad’ for nights like this. The living room looks like it’s already been hit by Hurricane Gents. Jack is asleep on the couch, halfway disassembled gun on his chest, Ryan’s playing with his butterfly knives like he’s trying to make a shitty homemade ninja movie, and Geoff’s trying to get Ryan’s skull mask to land on top of the whirring ceiling fan. Ray’s certain alcohol was involved somewhere in this equation. 

Geoff and Ryan are yammering back and forth, music rising and falling behind them, but somehow even that’s too loud, too  _ much-- _

And then the noise is gone and they’re in Michael’s room. The only light comes from a lamp next to the bed, which Michael’s already shoved in the corner to make room, like they won’t all end up crowding together anyway. Ray takes a deep breath, letting the familiar surroundings soothe him a bit. He’s good here,  _ safe.  _

“I’m gonna go hunt down Gavvers,” Michael pipes up, sweeping one hand towards the bed. “Go ahead and get comfy, I found this old horror movie that’ll make him shit his pants--it’ll be hilarious.” 

Ray smiles a little at that, both because it  _ does  _ sound funny as hell, and also to dispel the worried lines around Michael’s eyes. It must work well enough, because Michael gives his shoulder a light squeeze and walks out. 

Now, normally Ray would just set up shop on the floor. It’s a prime tv-viewing area, and also way more casual than, you know, hogging the place where Michael  _ sleeps.  _ But fuck it. He feels bad and almost died a few hours ago. That calls for bending the rules a bit. 

So he goes about carving a little niche for himself on the side of the bed that’s against the wall. The pillows are just soft enough to be comfortable, the blankets thick and warm. They all smell like Michael, a mix of woodfire smoke from the heist and, just, something so distinctly  _ Michael _ that he’d recognize it anywhere. Ray feels kind of creepy for noticing, but--it’s nice. It all brings him far away from the part of his brain that’s still in the warehouse choking for breath. 

He goes lax, mind drifting to better places. It's warm and familiar, even better when he tugs his hood up over his ears. He slumps further against the wall, eyes slipping shut. Ray’s not really firing on all cylinders at the moment, but he makes a mental note to thank Michael for this later. Sometimes Ray needs his ass kicked back into the real world. 

Gavin and Michael trickle in at some point, blessedly quieter than they usually are. The mattress dips, twice, and then there's a warm weight against his side. An arm wraps around his shoulders and he curls inward away from it, but once he registers that it's Michael it's enough to get his brain to chill again. 

Sounds pass intermittently, of Gavin shouting from the foot of the bed about whatever movie they've put on, of Michael telling Gavin to shut up, but all easy enough to tune out. Ray can’t claim that he feels  _ perfect,  _ couldn’t possibly with how fresh everything is in his mind. But this has helped. That bubbling discontent is still there, if he reaches out for it. And he’ll have to take a second to freak out about that at some point. But for now, he just takes a deep breath and lets himself be held. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did all the formatting for this chapter while simultaneously watching a cute bunny video, so let me know if there's any errors I didn't catch

In the days after his brush with death, he slowly moves back towards normal. He’s familiar with going through the motions of shitstorms like these--death’s kind of in the job description. Except he’s found it a little harder to shake off this time, notices himself being irritable and snappy, turning down offers from the others of joining them on small jobs to take his mind off things. Normally he’d just go take some potshots with Ryan, who’s one of the few assholes in the crew that can appreciate _silence,_ but. Every time he goes to ask, his brain digs its stupid little heels into the sand at how much he doesn’t _want_ this anymore. It’s like some cog in the machine of his head jumped ship and left everything slightly _off._

And then, to make matters even _fucking_ better, Michael and Ryan have to go off galavanting in the desert for a week, because apparently some asshole crew is trying to worm their way in too close to the Fake’s airstrip. The two of them set up shop in one of their safe houses towards the edge of the city, and since fate loves to fuck Ray in the ass, that means neither of them have cell service. So no texting the two people who might’ve put up with his shit, then.

Geoff and Jack immediately sequester themselves away to plan some gigantic heist that’s not even humanly possible, just for shits and giggles, which leaves Ray with Gavin. Or, it _would’ve_ left him with Gavin, but the guy fucks off back to his own apartment to chill with his two girlfriends, three cats, and whatever the fuck else the lot of them keep in that place. Ray honestly would not be surprised to hear they had a goddamn tiger, or something, what with the stories Meg and Lindsay tell him.

So that means that Ray’s list of people to bother is, well, empty. And while he’s got no issues with being alone, not having the _option_ to interact makes the silence kind of grating. When it becomes clear that the penthouse is going to keep being quiet and boring, he goes to see Matt, Trevor, and Jeremy. Or, as Geoff likes to affectionately call them, the assholes that allow him to take days off now.

He doesn’t know the three of them very well, if at all. Outside of the occasional crew party he gets roped into, Ray really only has contact with them on heists. Matt listens to the police scanner, checks traffic reports, and whatever else is necessary to pick routes that won’t get them fucking killed. Trevor makes sure their communications don’t bite the dust, moves around their audio channels based on who needs to hear what. And Jeremy, well, Ray’s not really sure. Just that he’s good at punching shit, and he goes out and distracts the police in weird cars sometimes, and something about a weird food bet? He doesn’t really want to know.

But, seeing as his eyes are about to pop out of his fucking skull if he doesn’t get moving, do _something,_ he might as well go say hello.

Before he heads out he shouts at Geoff through the planning room’s door that he’s leaving. Not like he or Jack would really _need_ him for anything, but might as well make sure. In response he gets some muffled nonsense that sounds like Geoff saying ‘ _alright, get the fuck out.’_

So he gets on his bike and does exactly that. He even has more than half a tank left for once, which he thanks his past self for. Nothing’s more of a buzzkill than having to pause a joyride for a refueling break. His bike’s pretty, but maybe he isn’t the best at taking care of it. Who cares, though, when it works well enough to get him out of the penthouse and _free._

He’d forgotten how nice it is to just _be_ in the city. No heists, no crowds of people yelling in his ear. The sun’s out, air touched by fall, and no one can force him to do _anything._ He weaves in and out of traffic lazily, halfway trying to keep his speed in check. No need to get the police involved.

Trevor, Matt, and Jeremy are based in an old safe house a few blocks from the beach. Ray hasn’t been by it in fucking ages, probably because the whole thing had somehow always reeked of old fish. The last time he’d stayed there had been after a particularly chaotic heist. It’d involved him getting shot in the arm, enough yelling to give any sane person a migraine, and somehow relying on Gavin for a getaway that fucking involved a stolen _jet ski._

So his memories of the place mostly involve him drenched, bleeding, and bitching at Gavin. Not stellar.

But it looks like having people of actual competence take over the building has improved it immensely. For starters, the fish smell is gone. And the main room has also been turned into some mass office, which he discovers when he walks in (after sending a warning text, not particularly wanting to get shot,) turns a corner, and trips over a box someone left in the middle of the fucking floor.

He saves it just before eating shit, but not in time to keep Trevor from noticing. He thinks the bastard _filmed_ it, somehow, but the camera’s gone as soon as it appeared. And then Trevor’s gone too, off into some back hallway--Ray hears him calling for Jeremy. And, sure, he’d texted Jeremy beforehand, but that was because he was the most likely suspect to answer his phone first. Now he’s not too sure what the hell is going on, because he hadn’t figured a casual swing-by would be so... _efficient._ He can’t have given them more than five minutes of warning, yet the main room is suspiciously empty even though all of the computers are still on.

At least Jeremy seems pretty relaxed when he walks out, if a touch serious in the face. Ray tries to keep things casual, even compliments him on the new addition to his hair--the purple looks nice.

Instead of playing along, Jeremy cuts straight to the point. “Gavin said you might be coming?”

Ray doesn’t like how that’s a question. Or that Jeremy’s in cahoots with Gavin, maybe, nevermind the fact that _something_ Ray’s done is apparently worth gossip.

“What’d he say?” Ray keeps his body language neutral, but lets a bit of steel enter his voice. He doesn’t know Jeremy well enough to fuck around with something like this, doesn’t know his intentions. The question Jeremy had asked would be harmless enough on its own if they didn’t all have their own side loyalties and business interests. And he’s been burned in the past by closer associates, so a guy he barely knows having insight into his supposedly _random_ visit is concerning. And it’s just as possible that Gavin really _is_ meddling as it is that Jeremy has some random jackass as an informant and needed a cover story.

Jeremy may be a bit of a wild card in Ray’s mind, but he’s smart enough to know how fucking shady that all sounds. “He didn’t tell me much,” he immediately backtracks, hands up like Ray’s some animal growling at him, “didn’t want to discuss everything on the phone, or start rumors when he wasn’t sure, but--”

“Gav’s never had an issue with starting rumors,” Ray scoffs, “I want to know what he _said._ ”

Jeremy shifts uncomfortably, clears his throat.

“He said that you might want to leave the crew.”

And Jeremy says it so fucking _casually_ that it takes Ray a second to process it. “Gav’s not--he’s not _sure,_ ” he presses on, “and don’t worry--I told him that it was a load of horeshit anyway; you’ve been with them for-fucking- _ever_. But he was pretty worked up about it, said you’d seemed unhappy for a while, and there was this bad job--” Jeremy keeps rambling on, a touch nervously, as he tries to amend for the poor wording earlier.

He keeps talking as if he hasn’t just punched all the breath out of Ray’s lungs. Like everything suddenly makes sense again in the most horrible way possible.

_Ray wants to leave the crew._

\---

The ride back to the penthouse is much less triumphant. Because, _fuck._ He’d known his brain had gone wrong somewhere, that something needed to change, but he’d never even thought to consider that what he wants also conveniently happens to be one of the harshest ways to betray his crew, his _friends._

It makes too much sense for him to pretend to ignore it, though. He hasn't loved Los Santos for a long fucking time--had never had that moment Geoff talks about when he gets drunk and sentimental, of seeing the skyline for the first time and knowing exactly what he’d wanted.

Ray had gotten pulled out of Liberty City by Michael, kicking and screaming, nevermind the fact that he absolutely would've gotten himself fucking killed if he tried to stick it out there any longer. Los Santos had become his home by force. But he’d gotten used to it, grown to love it. Or so he'd thought.

He hadn't dealt in forevers before joining the Fakes. Loyalty wasn't in high supply in his life, had only ever seen it as an act that led to a betrayal down the road. But the Fakes had all been almost frighteningly devoted, compared to crews he’d dealt with before. And Michael through it all, assuming Ray would stick around.

So he had. Years and years of sticking around. He's not sure when that’d stopped being something he wants too. But now that Jeremy’s made him aware of it, like some phantom limb of a bad idea, he can't get it out of his _head._

Ray’s stuck at a red light, waiting to make the left turn that’ll take him back to the penthouse. He stares up the street with unfocused eyes. He could drive away right now. Just floor it and not look back. All he’s got on him is his wallet and a knife, but he’s made do with less.

Instead, the light turns green and he goes home.

\---

Gavin’s on the couch when Ray walks in, bouncing his leg nervously. The guilty look he shoots Ray over his shoulder is more than enough to confirm Jeremy’s story. He doesn’t want Gavin to blab to all the others, though, or be in constant freakout mode. So he decides to roll with Jeremy’s calling bullshit on Ray’s supposed runaway act, and maybe get some information in the process. If Ray was that obvious before even _realizing_ it, he’ll have to do better. No need to cause a fuss. So, casual interrogation it is.

“Why did Jeremy know I was coming, huh?” Gavin squirms a little in his seat. “You a fucking psychic now?”

“Don’t be mad at me,” is what Gavin opens with, turning around fully on the couch to face Ray. “Silly me, right?” He laughs without humor. “I didn’t think about how bad that’d sound. I guess I just figured if you needed, uh, help with anything--um, you’d go to them.”

“And what’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Ray crosses his arms. At least now he understands why Jeremy knew--the lot of them really _would_ be the ones to go to for that.

Gavin looks down. “I thought you wanted to leave,” he admits in a small voice.

Ray gives a harsh, surprised laugh. It startles him as much as it does Gavin. Man, hearing that twice in one day is really a shock to the system.

“You’ve gotta stop having ideas, dude. It’s a hazard to everyone involved.”

Gavin relaxes, shooting him a relieved grin, and an odd coil of shame blooms in his gut. But, whatever. The crew will get sick of Ray eventually. He can just leave then and not have to worry about making it a whole dramatic scene.

He just has to wait it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Also, hope you all enjoyed the new friends this chapter. I didn't tag all the characters that'll appear, so keep your eyes peeled for even more people to show up!  
> (Also, they totally put that box there so they could film Ray tripping over it. You've gotta make your own fun)


	3. Chapter 3

“The crew over in the east of the city are being assholes again,” Geoff says for the tenth time that week.

“Yeah?” Ray humors him, not turning his attention away from the surprisingly intense round of virtual golf he’s playing.

“We need to teach them a lesson.”

“And how are we gonna go about doing that?” He lands an anticlimactic bogey and sinks back against the couch.

“Well, a little birdie told me that their second in command is driving through our territory tonight for a meeting. And he _loves_ riding around in his new convertible.”

_Oh._

It’s the first time Geoff has asked him to work since the shitstorm of his last job. Even if the delivery is kind of vague, it’s not actually much of a question. A few of the others can snipe, but something with this small a window of opportunity and such a high profile target is a job right up Ray’s alley. He’s not _thrilled,_ had planned to spend the night chilling at the penthouse and wait for Michael and Ryan to get back, but orders are orders.

“Just so happens I’m free tonight,” he says instead.

“Good.”

\---

Ray has half a mind to think that Gavin picked this location as a bit of revenge for bitching at him, making him worry, or both. Because the road his target’s going down, allegedly, puts him in their territory for almost two and a half miles. A quick look at some maps had shown some very promising foothills and shops under their control for him to use as a sniper’s nest. He’d let Gavin pick the spot regardless, trusting his expertise.

Instead, he’s going to be shooting through the window of an abandoned house that has ‘ _BOOB’_  spray-painted in a glaring red along one of the walls. It’s complete with little dots for nipples inside the o’s.

Normally, that’s the type of humor he’d be all about. Except, the graffiti is positioned so that his guy is gonna see it as he drives up the road. And, shocker, it’s an eye catcher. Which normally does not play nice with sniping.

If Gavin gets him killed over fucking boob graffiti, he’s gonna haunt his ass so hard.

Not like ghosts are real, of course. He has to firmly remind himself of this as he stands very still in what was once a bedroom, in a house that used to be full of life. His setup involves carefully balancing his rifle on some crumbling wicker chairs he carted up here from the downstairs. Anything of more value has long since been stolen.

The window to his right offers a perfectly horrific view an abandoned swing set in the yard. One swing’s ropes have snapped, the other is held in place by snaring weeds. And he could’ve dealt just fine with the creepy shit _outside,_ but the room itself isn’t much better. The walls are painted in different, once vibrant, colors. There’s a ripped decal of a T-rex on the wall that’s been giving him the evil eye. A clock on the wall with Scooby Doo characters on the face has one hand snapped off, the remaining hour hand stuck forever on three.

He can’t shake the feeling that something _really fucking bad_ happened here.

But he can’t think in ghost stories right now. Already he feels cold and hyper aware of every minute creak in the floorboard, animals slinking around in the underbrush outside. The moon’s only just begun waning, casting a silvery light over everything. In the shadows of the house he should be covered, but he’s acutely aware of how it’s still bright enough for anything in the woods to see him.

It’s colder than it should be this time of year. A temporary cold front soon to be chased out, making his breath into thin clouds in front of him. Making his hands shake ever so slightly.

He clenches his fists, heaves out a sigh, and sits heavy in one of the empty chairs. It sags under his weight threateningly, but holds. If he freaks out every time he has a serious job to do, then the crew is gonna get tired of him much sooner than he’d projected.

So he forces his thoughts to Michael. He’s probably in the car right now, in the passenger seat since Ryan doesn’t let anyone drive his cars. Maybe he’s asleep, or, more likely, trying to beat Gavin’s score in Crossy Road. Ray’s not positive, but he thinks they have money on it now.

Ryan had called from the safehouse’s landline earlier. He’d reported that the rival crew had been chased off with neither of the two of them any worse for wear because of it. So at least he didn’t have to worry about _that._

Ray doesn’t bring his personal phone out on jobs, but he’s struck with the urge to text Michael. Not for anything in particular, just to _talk._ He’d never admit it to Michael’s face, but he’s missed him the past few days.

He pulls his burner phone out of his pocket. It’s programmed with Geoff’s number for when the hit’s done, but nothing else. And while he _does_ have Michael’s number memorized, the texting capabilities aren’t stellar, given that the phone is old as shit. The only way to type is by pressing the number keys until he gets the letter he wants, which is an ancient feature he doesn’t care to revisit.

So he grabs the equally shitty camera from his bag, the one he’ll use to prove that the job is (hopefully) a success, and sets about taking some photos of the creep-fest around him to show Michael later. He makes sure to zoom in on a half rotted rat in the corner--that one he’ll show to Gavin as revenge for putting him in this shitty place.

It quickly devolves into taking ridiculous photos of his face. He’s in the middle of seeing how extreme of a double-chin he can create, complete with crossed eyes, when he hears the distant crunch of tires on gravel. He almost falls out of the fucking window in his haste to get into position.

The house is situated right after a hairpin left turn, which means his target will _have_ to slow down. That or he’ll fly off into the forest and do Ray’s job for him.

The car rounds the corner almost fast enough to crash. He gives it a once-over through the scope. Right make and model, left headlight out--exactly as their informant had described. And if that wasn't enough, the guy’s ugly mug is recognizable even from the blurry photos Gavin had shown him.

He lets him pass the house, pivoting his rifle to the right. The window of opportunity is only seconds long and all he can hear is his heartbeat as he lines up his crosshairs over where his head is about to be--

And he fires.

A red mist sprays up across the windshield. The car swerves off the road, hood crumpling into itself like paper against one of the trees lining the street.

Ray’s disassembling his setup in an instant, gun warm in his hands. The road isn't busy by any stretch, but even the smallest chance of being caught at the scene isn't worth the risk. Also, he’d prefer to get out of the house that feels like it crawled out of P.T as soon as possible, thank you very much.

He takes the stairs two at a time, near about jumping out of his skin when his foot crunches down on an empty beer can. The shadows crawling across the living room are horrible, so’s the smell of whatever fucking animal died in here, and then he's out.

First he jogs over to the car, confirming that, yep, either his target is down or he’s somehow going to have to learn to live with not having half his brain anymore. He snaps a few photos to confirm, taking one with him in it (and pulls a face again, because blowing someone's brains out in the middle of the night is a laugh or cry kind of deal), and he calls Geoff for a pickup--voice loud in the empty street.

\---

Jack picks him up from a gas station a mile from the house. Ray pulls himself up from the curb, waving to the cashier inside who had very politely not mentioned the rifle strapped to his back. Plus side, he’d even gotten a free soda.

“How was it?” Jack asks, looking back in the mirror to make sure the cashier doesn't call anyone.

“I'm murdering Gavin later.”

It seems silly now that he's removed from that place, safe in Jack’s car, but it really had been deeply unpleasant. Good satisfaction from completing the hit itself, but he's gonna have cobwebs all over his shit. And also maybe some nightmares. Or he’ll get haunted into insanity.

Jack chuckles. “That bad, huh? Gavin said the location was a little...dated.” He very wisely doesn't press any more, perfectly aware of where the lines of getting too far into people’s business are. Ray knows he must look like he's seen something _not great_ , and technically he has, but he immensely appreciates that Jack doesn't comment on it.

Then, champion of conversation that Jack is, he changes the subject. “Ryan and Michael got back an hour ago.” And _that_ perks Ray right back up. He would've liked to have been there to greet them, but at least now he won't have to wait for them to get briefed or any of that shit, if they’re even still up.

“Everything good with them?” Ryan had said they were fine, but he’s also a notorious under-stater. One time he'd gotten shot and no one came as backup because he reported it as ‘a stinging inconvenience.’

Jack nods. “Nothing more than a few scrapes. They'll be excited to see you--Michael wanted me to pass on that he has some story about how Ryan tried to kill somebody ‘Roadrunner style,’ so take that as you will.”

“I'm looking forward to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The abandoned house is one of the scenes that I had the most fun with. Most of the inspiration comes from some really awesome abandoned places, but the 'BOOB' part came from an electrical box I saw with just the words 'ass tits' on it. Inspiration strikes in strange ways


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the dramatic change in posting, but I'm going to post the rest of this today! Life's getting busier and I might not have been able to hold to the daily schedule, also I think it's better read all in one go regardless. This chapter is a tiny bit shorter, but very important! Also, keep the warnings in mind for this one

When Ray gets back, Michael is asleep on his floor. Which, okay, not  _ that  _ unusual, but he hadn’t been expecting it tonight. The penthouse had been dark when he and Jack returned, not surprising considering it was upwards of three in the morning. He’d figured Michael and Ryan, normally the usual suspects for being up this late, had gone to rest up from the job already.

He crouches down next to Michael, nudging at his shoulder. Michael doesn’t so much as twitch, face relaxed underneath the assorted bruises and scratches. All things considered, it looks like he got out of it pretty good. 

Ray cleans himself up as loudly as he can, trying to rouse Michael before he has to risk getting punched in the face to do it himself. He slams cabinet doors in the bathroom, throws his now cobwebbed hoodie at Michael, even lets out a properly girly shriek when he finds a cockroach trying to make a new home for itself in his shoe. Nothing.

Sighing, he marches over to Michael and shakes him roughly by the shoulders. 

Michael doesn't start awake like Ray expects. He  _ does _ sluggishly move to grab a gun that's not there, but otherwise just squints sleepily up at Ray.

“ _ Whatthefuck, _ ” Michael mumbles, and Ray fights down the warm  _ fondness _ at that. Like, what the hell? It's just Michael being tired, not anything of note. First freaking out on the job,  _ again,  _ now this. His emotions might as well belong to someone else, what with how they're betraying him left right and center.

But, outside of any of his own internal bulshit, Michael looks fucking  _ wiped.  _ Ray can relate. Sleep tugs at his own limbs, mind growing hazier by the second. His hoodie and sweatpants might as well be the comfiest blankets in the world. They both need to go the fuck to sleep.

Ray wraps an arm underneath Michael, tugging him further upright. “C’mon, sleeping time.”

Somewhere in a jumble of curses and stumbling around, Michael ends up sprawled out on the beanbag in the corner of Ray’s room. It’d been a gift from Geoff, who, knowing nothing about Pokemon, had attempted to find an off-brand Snorlax...thing.

Ray’s not sure what animal is looks the most like, maybe an obese elephant, but he doesn't find himself caring very much when Michael tugs him backwards onto it. The beanbag all but swallows him up. 

Michael yawns, rolling over towards Ray. “Gav said you were on a hit earlier.”

“Gavin’s a bitch and I've probably been possessed by some child-murdering demon. The little fucker sent me to a haunted house.” 

“Well, if any demons come to eat me, tell ‘em not to wake me up for it.”

And the two of them fell asleep.

\---

Ray wakes up to Michael gone and a post-it note on his cheek.

‘ _ Since you never check your phone we’re getting lunch @ the pier will be back at two or something also you snore and it's really annoying’ _

The time on his phone, which he  _ does  _ fucking check, says it’s noon. And that he has only two percent left, wow, so he rolls off the beanbag and plugs it in. He lays there for a few minutes, dicking around on a few apps before leaving it to charge. 

He  _ could  _ go out, maybe get some food, but laziness quickly puts that idea to rest. He grabs his DS and a box of Chinese leftovers from the fridge, heading for the roof. 

Their little roof access hatch had started as a ‘shit’s hit the fan’ escape route, only accessible by a tiny ladder propped up against the wall of the planning room’s closet. It’s never really changed, but it’s unspoken knowledge that it’s a designated ‘chill zone.’ Nobody fights on the roof or does anything that's violently illegal enough to draw attention to their home base. In the summertime they sometimes drag dinner up there.  

Ray’s favorite spot is a familiar and welcome sight. It’s up against an air conditioning unit that he’d picked at random one day and made his own. There’s a few assorted sharpie scribbles on it. Things he needed to do that make no sense now, like ‘get green suit’ or ‘dodge Jack.’ And the dumber shit, like a plethora of dick drawings. The base of it is littered with the wrappers for some hard candies, a half empty can of Redbull on top of them to keep them from blowing away. He already kills people for a living, no need to make the city even dirtier by letting his trash go all over. 

The leftovers are cold but passable. He snacks on them idly and stares up at the clouds. The chill from the night before is less intense, but it lingers in the wind. Maybe that’s just him losing his resistance to cold weather he got from living up north. Winter’s supposed to be a doozy this year, though. Who knows, maybe in a couple months they’ll even get a bit of snow. That’d shake up the monotony a bit. 

Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. 

\---

He’s up on the roof for an hour, maybe less, when he hears a muffled commotion beneath him. What might be a slamming door, heavy footsteps. Historically, not great sounds in his life. He slides his DS into his pocket hesitantly, moving to his feet and envisioning the layout of the penthouse, trying to decide if it’s worth it to try to grab a gun from his room before scoping things out.

Any semblance of logic goes out the window when he opens the hatch and hears, “ _ Just fucking put pressure on it!”  _ in a panicked and breaking voice. It’s Geoff. He all but jumps down the ladder. His heart is thudding out of his chest. 

The kitchen is a mess. Food has been shoved off the counters, replaced by their fearsome array of medical supplies. Geoff’s holding his phone to his ear with a shaking hand, blood spotting his shirt. The others are clumped around the island, talking in panicked voices. Ray has to move closer to see what they're grouped around.

His stomach bottoms out. 

It's Gavin. And  _ oh god,  _ Gavin. This close he can smell the blood, horrible and metallic. He can see it, too, soaking Gavin’s front and sliding off of the island in globs. He’s lying so still that for a moment Ray doesn’t think he’s breathing. 

Jack, armed with a dish towel, puts bruising pressure  _ somewhere  _ on the bloody mass, the cloth stained red in seconds. Underneath him Gavin jolts and  _ shrieks,  _ or tries to. It doesn’t quite come out right around the blood gurgling in his throat. 

Ray’s brain shuts off. Just, white noise and somewhere in the distance, the muffled yelling of the others as they swarm around Gavin. Everybody’s luck runs out eventually, and he’s always prided himself on his cynical but realistic acknowledgement of that. But now that it’s  _ here,  _ the idea that they might be about to lose somebody, lose  _ Gavin,  _ he feels like he’s dying right along with him. But only a single, selfish thought breaks through his panic. 

_ I have to get the fuck out of here.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whOOPS


	5. Chapter 5

Gavin survived the night. That’s what Jack had told him was paramount, when he took a shaking Ray to the side and tried to explain things. If he survived the night, chances were okay. If,  _ if. _ After all, three stab wounds to the chest weren’t the easiest thing to survive, especially if one glanced a lung, the others hitting god knows which organs. Past that diagnosis, all Ray had been able to see was the dried blood streaking up Jack’s arms. 

The actual story he got from Ryan early the next morning, who sat with him in the cafeteria of the hospital that they’d paid to keep quiet. In Los Santos, law-abiding citizens didn’t usually show up to the hospital with a stabbed-up guy and guns at their hips. At that point they still weren’t letting anyone but Geoff in the room, and that was probably because he was the one to provide the bribe money. Ryan had been furious at that, furious the whole time, really, remnants of his facepaint accentuating the manic in his eyes. 

It was the crew on the east of the city. The fucking bastards claimed the hit before news of it had even spread. East Side, Ryan called them, for lack of any other name. “We underestimated them,” Ryan said with a grimace. “They had a rough hierarchy but it didn’t look like any real substance. I thought when you got their second that’d collapse them, but--” 

They’d realized at the same time that, even if it was an idiotic  _ mistake,  _ Ray had started this whole mess. Before this, the other crew had never caused them direct trouble, just turned a few of the Fake’s more tentative allies to their side. But Ray, who should've known  _ fucking better  _ than to blindly accept a hit that might make them new enemies, had gone and drawn a hell of a lot of bad attention. 

Their retribution was clearly an eye for an eye situation, East Side making a fucking  _ example  _ out of them in turn for the man Ray killed. They’d been tailed from the penthouse and ambushed at the restaurant after getting lulled into a false sense of security--turned into goddamn fish in a barrel. Ray had found himself wishing that he’d been there, so at least then the heat would’ve been directed at himself and not Gavin. It was only fair. 

And so here he is. Eyes burning from the lack of sleep and zoning out in the back of a cab, suddenly transfixed by the way his breath clouds against the window.

He’s going to talk to Jeremy again. It’s all he can think to do. Just like Michael marched back to the penthouse, got his minigun, and went to the first East Side storehouse he could track down. They both have to throw themselves into something. It just so happens that Ray’s distraction has more permanent consequences. He’s getting the fuck out of this place, no matter what. He’s no good here. 

\---

Their little base is buzzing with activity. Trevor has three screens up, typing rapidly and probably keeping them from an all out meltdown while Ray sits around useless and waits for Jeremy and Matt to finish what they’re doing and come talk to him. There’s faces he doesn’t recognize going in and out of the main room, new hires that he’s probably met at some point and forgotten. The city doesn’t stop even when the inner circle of the crew does. 

No one stops to ask what he’s doing here. Ray doesn’t blame them. He can’t look very inviting--he hasn’t slept, or showered, and his clothes are smudged red where Michael’s bloody clothes brushed up against his. 

And then, Matt and Jeremy walk up, armed with manilla folders. They look uncharacteristically serious, and Ray has half a mind to wonder what the fuck he’s gotten himself into. 

Apparently, he's gotten himself the fuck into a meeting. 

They lead him down a side hallway and into what might have once been a kitchen, now slowly morphing into another office. The table has a short leg propped up by what looks suspiciously like police case files, and the coffee pot on the counter is covered in sticky notes with various reminders. 

“We don’t want to make the decision for you,” Matt starts with, careful and a touch condescending like a teacher trying to delicately explain that he’s not all that smart, “And, uh, I know things are... _ stressful  _ right now, but, your window of opportunity is kind of small here.”

“You have a month and a half if you want to leave,” Jeremy simplifies, tossing his folder onto the mess already gathering on the table. “Coffee?” 

Harsh. Ray drinks the coffee black, willing it to push the sound of Gavin’s scream out of his head. Matt and Jeremy start talking about nonsense, foregoing the coffee to knock back some energy drinks, which leaves Ray to poke around the folders. They both have the exact same shit in them, which confirms his theory that the folder thing was for dramatic effect. 

Most of it’s just chicken scratch, copies of scrawled planning notes from Geoff and marked-up maps. The papers fortunate to be more legible read today and yesterday’s dates, and--holy shit, Geoff must’ve been up all night working on this. 

It’s for a heist. And, judging by the angry red circles and aggressive wording, it’s aimed at hitting East Side where it hurts. It’s reminiscent of a heist they did a long time ago on a whim, just bouncing from location to location and taking whatever wasn’t bolted down. This one contains a few more violent notes like ‘ _ fucking burn it’  _ and ‘ _ let Ray bring the grenade launcher.’  _ He’s a fan of that second one. 

“It’s gonna be absolute  _ chaos, _ ” Jeremy says proudly, “We’re helping Geoff iron it out right now, but we can...tweak it in your favor, I guess? For a small fee, of course.”

“You guess?” His voice is scratchy and doesn’t sound right coming out of his mouth. 

“Yeah,” Matt pipes up around his can of Redbull, “we were thinking the best time for you to slip out would be in the chaos. You’ll be split up for most of it.” 

“But all  _ we  _ can do is mess with the locations you’re hitting,” Jeremy says, sliding him a cream-colored business card. The name and address on it are unfamiliar. “You’ll need more help than that if you’re really serious about all this. Are you, you know? Serious?”

Ray nods, luckily emotionally drained enough to not think too deeply into all this. He dug this grave a long time ago, almost  _ really  _ dug a grave for Gavin, and now it’s time to lie in it. 

Jeremy claps his hands together. “Good! In that case, Kdin can help you out.” 

\---

Two days later, when Gavin is teetering between stable and  _ holy shit  _ again, thanks to a bullshit infection, Ray goes to see Kdin. He’d been putting it off, not quite ready to make everything super fucking real yet. Right now it’s just a background plan born from Matt and Jeremy making micro-adjustments to things, no biggie. But, had Michael not been basically attached to him for the past two days in between his visits to Gavin, Ray might have even found it in himself to think too deeply into  _ that.  _

But Gavin’s backslide has Michael gone again, in the middle of a Mortal Kombat match no less. And Ray’s medical knowledge boils down to what he’s seen on bad soap operas, so, not much he can do at the hospital. His guilt complex doesn’t need him to stand in an overly sanitized room for a few hours and see what he’s done either. 

So against any sane person’s better judgement, he finds himself sitting in the office of a criminal not affiliated with their crew. That breaks a lot of rules, most of them common sense. No matter how well Jeremy spoke of Kdin,  _ nice  _ doesn’t mean Ray’s allowed to make sneaky plans with someone they’re not allied with. Kind of frowned upon in the business. 

Still. He has a pretty good vibe about this place so far. The view of the city is spectacular, the ocean a thin line in the distance. The office is clean, decorated here and there with little knick knacks, all centered around a massive multi-screen computer setup that rivals Trevor’s. A Sylveon plushie peeking out of one of the shelves makes him feel a little bit less like he’s going to die. 

The receptionist had taken his gun, but hadn’t noticed the switchblade. If everything went tits up, if all his instincts were wrong, at least he has a backup plan.

He’s running a finger over the seam of the pocket hiding the knife when Kdin walks in. She does it without ceremony, which he can appreciate in a city where people let a little power manifest into the dramatics. She’s dressed casually, which he also appreciates, but it’s the short, pink hair that surprises him in a good way. He’s never met an asshole with pink hair before, and she doesn’t act like she’s gonna prove him wrong. 

She shakes his hand, introduces herself, and then immediately plops down into her computer chair and begins to type furiously. Is Ray supposed to start talking now? Offer up the cash stuffed in his bag? Running away forever isn’t cheap, after all. 

But as soon as he opens his mouth to get the ball rolling, she turns her attention away from the screens and back to Ray. It's then that he realizes her eyes look like Geoff’s-- a shocking blue like shards of ice shoved into someone’s skull. An amused glint in them like they know everything you don't.

“Sorry!” she says brightly, “had to wrap something up there. International stuff gets tricky sometimes!”

“I bet,” Ray agrees, probably lamely. He's still not entirely sure what to do, so he mentions that Jeremy referred him here. That opens her right up.

Kdin, as Ray learns, mostly does number crunching for some of the biggest criminals in the city. Offshore accounts, cost assessment, the works. But on the side, her skills at moving money around furtively also allow her to move things  _ out  _ of the city, namely people who need to start fresh. She also does mixed martial arts on the weekends, which makes Ray a tiny bit afraid of her. 

She also knows  _ way  _ more about leaving crews than Ray had previously thought possible. Kdin also, unfortunately, doesn’t let him bullshit a single aspect of the plan. How will he keep them from just tracking him down again?  _ Not sure. _ What kinds of jobs can he do outside of his sniping?  _ Again, not sure--certainly nothing useful. _ Is he going to pick a new name?  _ Nah _ . How much does he want to take with him?  _ At least his video games and rifle. _ Where will he  _ go _ ?

That last question makes him hesitate. “Liberty City?” he offers, and immediately her eyebrows crease. Wrong answer. 

“It can’t be somewhere you’re familiar with, though I know that is scary.” Ray bristles unintentionally at that, wants to say he’s not  _ scared,  _ and then ask how she knows he’s familiar with Liberty City. But he’s pretty used to the bullshit body language reading thing, having spent any time at all around Gavin, and worse, Ryan. 

“Saying it as a question means you’re not sure if you  _ can  _ go back either, and, as bad as it sounds, you shouldn’t. I don’t help my clients just for them to go off and get themselves killed, you know.” 

Ray hums in acknowledgement, mulling that over. Maybe it’s just rose colored glasses or whatever the fuck, but he’s kind of missed the hunk of shit that is Liberty City. And, as much as he hates it, Kdin’s right. Both on the fact that he can’t return, and also that it’s...scary, to leave. He  _ has  _ to, before he loses his goddamn mind or makes everything  _ worse,  _ but. Change is something he both desperately wants and shies away from. After all, what if his life just ends up shittier? 

Kdin reaches over the desk to squeeze his arm. Ray lets her. “I’ve helped a lot of people do this, and I have a lot of friends in your crew, so, I get it. It’s hard to leave them, isn’t it? Is that what’s making you hesitate?” Ray nods around a sudden lump in his throat. He’s acutely reminded of his mother, carefully prodding away at his problems. He forces himself off of that train of thought.

“Jeremy said I had a month and a half--that enough time?” Kdin nods, pulling her arm back. 

“Yep!” The pity in her eyes gives way to professionalism again, thank god. “Matt sent me some of the rough plans--not much more than the day, don’t worry, and if you’re willing to pay me some overtime, we can definitely make it work.” She keeps barreling on, talking about future meetings and new bank accounts, a huge wash of information that goes right over his head. 

He tunes back in when he starts hearing locations. “Now,  _ I’d  _ recommend you go out of the country, but something tells me that’s not quite your style.” Ray agrees. “But,” she says with a little smile, “I know a place. Far enough away--completely off the Fakes’ radar, big enough to vanish in but not too overwhelming, and enough opportunities for you to maybe find some new employment! And,” she adds with a wink, “really fucking good barbecue.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. Austin, Texas.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never actually had barbecue in Austin before so I can't attest to how good it really is, but I can vouch for a lot of their other food, so hopefully my creative liberty is accurate. And if it's not, well, maybe my fictional rendition of the city has the BEST bbq


	6. Chapter 6

Gavin returns to the penthouse two weeks later. According to Geoff, he’d bitched to just go back to his apartment instead  _ for the entire ride.  _ But like hell are they gonna let him out of their sight after they had to scrub his blood out from between the kitchen tiles. Gavin seems to get that through his thick brain, because he’s chilled out by the time he and Geoff get back. 

They all crowd into the living room to welcome him back, even Ray against his own shame that rises up at the prospect. He kind of, not out of  _ avoiding  _ Vav or anything, hasn’t seen the guy since he was bleeding out in the kitchen. He resolutely does not look at Meg, who’s pressed up next to him in their huddle near the door. Lindsay is behind him, and he’s sure that if he locks eyes with either of them he won’t like what he sees. 

Then Gavin’s there, a bit paler than usual but grinning like the sun. Lindsay and Meg, who have given Michael a run for his money in spending the most time with Gavin at the hospital, immediately power-walk over to him like it’s been years. Love’s kind of weird. 

And the crew is complete again. 

\---

Meg and Lindsay seem intent on staying in the penthouse with Gavin, which Ray totally gets. At first he’s apprehensive, near about pissing himself when he runs into Meg in the kitchen while making an early morning energy drink run. Apparently this is when she  _ wakes up?  _ As if the whole expert assassin thing wasn’t scary enough. 

Both of them are kind to him, almost aggressively so, but there’s a constant reminder in the back of his head that not only did he almost get their boyfriend killed, but also that the two of them frequently perform hits far beyond his own in complexity. Infiltrations, fake identities, shit all over the country that can sometimes take them months. He’d learned this when Gavin whined for four months straight about his girlfriends being in  _ Mississippi,  _ of all places. Ray has even gotten some of the stories straight from the source on the rare occasions where he’d seen them, though he’s still not sure which are legit and which came from old spy movie plots. Probably both, coming from them. 

The two of them mesh  _ really  _ well with the usual going-ons of the penthouse. Gavin still has to spend a decent chunk of his recovery time horizontal on whatever soft surface he chooses, or maybe he's just taking one step further in his mission of trying to become a cat. Lindsay and Geoff pick up on the pattern fast, and soon Ray begins finding Gavin in weird places to fruitlessly keep them from fucking with him. They're truly an unstoppable force, except for the time Lindsay tries to bring a snake into the equation and Geoff doesn't speak to her for an entire day. 

And Meg. If anyone could be the human equivalent of a magnet, she's it. There's always someone around her, usually talking animatedly, sometimes just wordlessly absorbing the energy she seems to constantly exude. Ryan seems fond of her, and god is it a sight to see the fearsome Vagabond bossed around in video games by someone half his size. Jack joins them for their little impromptu co-op sessions sometimes, smiling the whole time. They both like to build things, even if Meg’s medium is clothes where Jack’s is carpentry, and Ray finds them talking tool jargon and color schemes one night. 

But the one most enraptured is Michael. Seriously. It never stops, even when Ray manages to pry him off of them for some bro time. He always has a story ready about what they did earlier, or a joke that Lindsay tells  _ so  _ well, or whatever the hell. Ray gets it, but he also kind of hates it. 

\---

Like most things in Ray’s life, he deals with it using mostly silent griping. Michael&Ray time quickly gains three new members, which is pretty brutal for his introverted ass, but he manages.

It doesn't help matters that he feels like a caged animal in the penthouse now, like he's constantly hanging out of place but also bound down by everything that had made this his home once upon a time. But he also only has a month left here, no choice but to milk it for all it’s worth.

“So,” Gavin says from the couch, “if a cow eats a veggie burger, but--but it  _ thinks  _ the burger is real meat, would it still be considered cannibalism?”

Ray sets down his DS. “I don't know, Vav, would it be considered an act of mercy if I murdered you?” Gavin makes a sound kind of like a baby bird falling from its nest. Lindsay snorts, and he spots a smirk on Michael’s face, but that's aimed at Gavin. Meg looks equally as fond. 

And, apparently, Michael’s patience is infinitely more durable with Gavin. “Well, what are the cow laws?” he muses, “Is this fucker gonna go down for attempting it? Or just a cow warning?”

“Like a parking ticket!” Gavin exclaims, which, not funny, but Michael huffs out a laugh anyway. Ray stares at him likes he's an alien. Who replaced the Michael who threatened to throw Ray off the roof for eating the rest of his favorite chips? 

Ray realizes with a touch of horror that there's  _ jealousy  _ coiling in his gut. Which, what the fuck. He doesn't own Michael, the guy can dish out his weird brand of fondness on whoever he wants. Ray doesn't have dibs just because he's known him forever. But tell that to the absolutely bullshit  _ annoyance  _ he feels from watching all this. 

But he grits his teeth and  _ bears  _ it, because the last thing he needs is complicating everything with emotions.

\---

Watching the four of them interact, Ray can't seem to shake an old conversation from his mind. 

It’d been after a heist--the really shitty one where he got shot in the arm and there were jet skis and he had to hunker down with  _ Gavin _ , who kept complaining how  _ boring  _ the poor, maybe dying Ray was being. 

The day was shitty, no argument there, so upon getting to the penthouse Ray crashed on the couch. And Gavin got blind drunk. That was paramount for what would happen next.

The crew was scattered around. Ray lying across the couch, mostly spaced out on painkillers and his arm resting on a cushion. Michael was on the other end with Ray’s legs in his lap. The gents were somewhere close by but out of his line of sight, maybe at the kitchen island. And Gavin, who was sprawled out on the floor like a drunk, British starfish. 

“You ever think about adding a fourth to your weird little gaggle of girlfriends?” Geoff called, laughing when Gavin’s face turned a dramatic shade of red. “You know, making it an even number?”

Gavin spluttered. “Well it wouldn’t be you!” he cried, “You're an old bastard and I don't wanna shag my boss!”  

“Damn,” Jack mumbled. “He's got you there, Geoff.” 

“And it couldn't be you, Jack,” Gavin cut in, unfortunately encouraged, “Y’re too nice--you’d get eaten  _ alive. _ ” 

“Today I watched him beat a man to death with his bare hands,” Ryan offered. This stoked Gavin’s flame even further.

“Not you either, Ryebread, though you can be lovely sometimes! You were very horrible to me earlier, wouldn't listen…” He was referring, of course, to the fact that Ryan refused to swerve into a random motorcyclist and draw extra heat on them. What an asshole, right? 

The conversation devolved even further, Ryan and Geoff getting into a heated argument over whether or not Geoff ricocheted a bullet off of a fire hydrant  _ intentionally. _

But Geoff, ever the worst boss,  _ had  _ to bring up Michael, who had wisely stayed quiet the whole time. “You skipped Michael, Gavvers.” Nevermind that he’d skipped Ray too, but thank god for that. 

“Well,” Gavin mumbled from the floor, face burning, “I mean, s’nothing wrong with him, really.” 

Ray tensed up so fast that his arm gave a throb of pain in protest. And Michael, well, he didn’t say a fucking thing. 

And now, months after the fact, Ray’s still thinking about that. Michael certainly meshes well with the three of them, like the place of that mysterious fourth person they sometimes mention in passing was  _ built  _ for him. Who knows, maybe they've had their eye on Michael for months now.

The good friend in Ray hopes that's true, that things will shake out in all of their favors and they can be a big happy four-way, or however that shit works.

The selfish part of him disagrees. He finds himself inordinately pleased when Michael’s attention is on  _ him,  _ when they get to spend a night with just the two of them again. Hell, he even lets Michael take him to a  _ bar.  _ There's not many people he’ll put up with dumbass drunks for. 

And he makes Michael laugh so hard that he snorts beer out of his nose. The annoying, selfish part of him shuts the fuck up, and he lets himself relax and enjoy the time he's got left. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAJOR kudos to my friend that I sprung the cow hypothetical on before writing this scene. We had a frighteningly in-depth conversation about it


	7. Chapter 7

With only a few days to go it starts to get really, really, _real._ Kdin is basically a goddess and has already set up an apartment for him in Austin, fake papers, rustled up a car for him to drive out of the city in, and is slowly diverting his money into a new account. The only thing Ray has to do is get his stuff ready, slowly taking trips to a safe house they never use and dumping his possessions throughout the rooms. It looks like a really crappy estate sale, but somehow even more depressing.

On the day of the heist, which Geoff formally explained to them a few days ago once Gavin was cleared for work, Ray will go with Jack and hit their first location--a little mom and pop store that East Side launders money in. With luck, they’ll wrap up fast and Ray will be on his way to the safehouse get his stuff into the car, and then he’s _out_.

But first, grocery shopping.

Kdin thinks it’s too risky for him to take even a private plane. Too easily tracked that way. Which means Ray gets to go on a very pathetic roadtrip! Because tourist destinations have cameras, and so does literally every store known to man, which takes all of _that_ off his list of stops. He finally gets her to yield on a motel room, because he’s not gonna sleep in his _car_ where he’ll get axe-murdered on the side of the road, and she books him a couple of rooms spaced out across the drive under various names to pick from depending on how far he gets the first night. Which is great, but he’s still a little pissed that he has to stock up on non-perishables when he could just stop at McDonald’s for the five or six meals she projects he’ll eat on the road. And, hey, maybe for the food he’ll need while laying low in Austin he can make even more furtive fast food runs. Or maybe that’s too predictable of him.

“We have to be precise,” she’d told him, “A single mistake on the drive out and this all comes toppling down, so _please,_ for the love of god, stick with the plan and I _promise_ it’ll be alright.”

Then she makes him a shopping list, so there’s not really any more room for argument. The car food he’s not too worried about--he’ll just grab some chips, a couple of candy bars, and snack on it. He doesn’t foresee having a huge appetite after his vanishing act.

But how the fuck do you stock an apartment? The list Kdin made is just the short and he keeps feeling like he’s forgetting something. And, as a possibly more pressing issue, how does he get the shit he needs for laying low without tipping off Michael? Who, for god knows what reason, has detached himself from the infamous trio on their last day before moving back to their own apartment to go with him to a _grocery store,_ of all places. But hey, he’ll take what he can get.

“So why are you buying toilet paper?” Michael asks, attempting to juggle the two packs he’d just swiped from the cart.

“Welcome home present for Vav,” Ray lies, snatching a few boxes of cereal from the shelf without looking.

“You’re awfully hungry today,” Michael remarks with a touch of suspicion in his voice. Maybe Ray hasn’t been doing too well in the subtlety department. His cart is already exceeding his normal snack quota by about every marginally healthy item he’s tossed in.

“Maybe I’m changing my ways, going clean, accepting Mother Earth as my lord and savior and trying food that won’t rot my innards.” To prove his point, he grabs a bag of clementines from a corner display. He tries to estimate the remaining room in the car after he shoves the rest of his crap in it. He also tries to ignore the look Michael’s giving him long enough for him to drop the issue.

Michael chucks a bag of pretzels at him. They land in the cart, but that's probably just a happy accident. “Is this a midlife crisis? Evil clone replace you? Did that demonic possession you were talking about finally go through?”

“If I tell you it’s a midlife crisis will you buy me wine and drive the kids to soccer practice for me?”

“Please. The wine would be wasted on you, and if the kids inherit _your_ physique, they’d get their asses whooped in soccer. I was thinking crocheting doilies--then they could have something in common with their father.” He pulls one of the clementines out of the bag and peels it. “You, not me, by the way--any genes those little fuckers get from _me_ would be way cooler than yours.” He eats the clementine whole.

Ray wants to flip him off. He also kind of wants to kiss him. So he settles for just the first one.

It’s easy. One moment his thoughts drift to how annoying that one flickering fluorescent light is, the next to if Michael would taste like clementines if he planted one on him right now. Maybe it’s natural progression to want to kiss your best friend, or maybe he’s the odd man out here. Who cares. In a few days it won’t fucking matter, so he slings an arm around Michael’s shoulders for a brief second, squeezes him into a weird half-hug, and turns his attention back to loading up the cart.

\---

Turns out the revelation of wanting to kiss your friend is a tad more brutal at three in the morning. Sleep isn’t happening, neither is going to check if Michael’s up, so he finds himself knocking on Ryan’s door. His knuckles sting from the force of it.

He hears Ryan lumber over to the door, then he’s swinging it open and scrubbing a hand over his eyes.

“Hey man,” Ray says with a smile that’s hopefully convincing, “You wanna go blow some shit up?”

For as long as he’s known him, Ryan has never been one to decline an offer for casual destruction, and tonight is no different. So after slipping into the armory, grabbing their rocket launchers, and stashing them in the trunk of Ryan’s car, they’re off. He lets Ryan pick the place, trusting that he’ll take them somewhere abandoned. Ray really doesn’t want this to turn into a work thing. Or a Geoff tearing him a new asshole thing.

All Ryan has to say on the subject is that he ‘knows a place.’ Of fucking course he does. Leave it to Ryan to have an explosives place. Though, to be fair, Michael has one too.

And...it’s a parking lot. Electricity is still running to a few distant lampposts even though the building the lot once belonged to is completely reduced to rubble. The carnage looks old, and was most likely caused by Ryan, so he doesn’t spare the pile of bricks much thought.

What’s much more promising are the cars. They’re all total rust buckets, most of them sporting char marks, but a bit of adrenaline rises in him at the idea of blowing them sky high. Even wrecked cars make for excellent explosions.

He lets Ryan shoot first. It’s only polite.

A halfway burned out car goes sailing backwards and lands on its roof. _Boom._ The heat wave is intoxicating. Ryan’s grinning--without the mask or the face paint it’s a damn sight less creepy than when they’re on a job. Right now they’re just two dudes blowing shit up in a parking lot. Ray can dig it.

He lifts his launcher up, re-adjusting to the weight and taking aim at what looks like it’s an old delivery van. Or, _was_ a van. It’s kind of unrecognizable once it flips twice and lands on its side in its own personal fireball. _Nice._

For the first time in a goddamn while he feels...content. Almost. Removed from everything, it’s like all of his own internal bullshit got left in a neat little box back at the penthouse.

And then Ryan decides to fuck up their ‘quiet time,’ or whatever this is. He clears his throat, shifting ever-so-slightly towards Ray.

“Is this a Michael thing?”

Ray could laugh, could cry. Ryan fires again, but Ray barely notices the explosion. Some instinctive part of his brain vaguely notes that they’ll have to stop soon; the ammo for these things is expensive.

“My life doesn’t revolve around Michael,” Ray bites out. The columns of smoke obscure the stars above them and tickle his nose. The rocket launcher feels ten pounds heavier in his hands and he’s _tired._

“Fine, then we’ll deal with this in generalities.” Ryan takes out two cars parked next to each other. “You’ve been acting strange for a while now, Ray.”

“Fuck you,” he spits before he can stop himself, “I haven’t been _strange._ ”

Ray shoots again, but his form slipped when he’d turned his attention to the conversation. It goes wide, the kickback aching as it slides against his shoulder. A stinging wave of heat tells him that maybe that went off a _little_ too close. When he blinks, the image of the explosion burns against his eyelids.

Ryan puts a hand on his shoulder, maybe out of comfort, maybe because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“We’re all here for you,” Ryan says, too serious all of a sudden. “Anytime you need us, okay?” Ray stares out into the empty lot.

“Yeah,” he says around the lump in his throat, “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shopping montage! And a 'lil dash of dramatic irony for the soul, aka one of my favorite writing things


	8. Chapter 8

They go back to the penthouse. Ray doesn’t sleep. Instead, he tugs a collapsed cardboard box out from under his bed and tugs it open, taping the bottom in place with a far too familiar motion. Most of his shit is already stored at the safehouse. A lot of it is just clothes, games, things he doesn’t care to have to replace in Austin. Yet there’s already gaps in the room. He’s slowly chipping away at his presence here.

He stands up, bracing himself with his hands on his knees when his head spins. The lamp next to his bed is the only light in the room but it feels impossibly bright, making his head throb when he looks too long at it. He’s so, _so_ fucking tired.

All of his hats get tossed into the box, followed by his DS charger, next a tiny statue of a dog that Jack got him for Christmas. Apparently it brings good luck. Hell, he’s gonna need it.

Underneath the statue is a few photos. The first is two-thirds Gavin making a face right up against the camera, the rest Ray flipping him off in the background. There’s a photo of an exploding building that Michael took on an old job, and another of a Halloween where Geoff dressed up like Abraham Lincoln. At the bottom of the stack is an old photo of him and Michael in Liberty City. They’re on the subway, Ray making an overdramatic, scoffing face at Michael, who looked up just as the photo was being taken. They were young, and stupid, but _god_ was it a time.

Ray swallows heavily and sets the stack of photos in the box.

He stares up at the ceiling, at the constellation of tiny cracks and the odd marks he’s committed to memory by now. Then at the walls, at the dent from when he bet Michael five bucks he couldn’t do a cartwheel blindfolded. This has been his home for years now, but he’s not sure when it stopped feeling that way.

Midnight’s long since passed. That means there’s only two days left until the heist. That’s forty-eight hours to make his peace, or whatever. And then he’s never coming back. Because halfway quitting the crew just isn’t possible. They’ll pull him back in if he so much as calls, be it physically or out of guilt. No, if he leaves it has to be a forever thing. Besides, they’ll hate him for this anyway. Any welcome back committee would probably involve a gunfight.

He’s not gonna see these people again unless they come to kill him. Shit, that’s--that’s kind of a hard pill to swallow. So instead he starts sweeping things off of his shelves and into the box, barely noticing when the light of sunrise began to fill the room.

\---

Somewhere between filling up a second box (and last, the rest’ll go in his heist bag) and the first sounds of activity in the penthouse, the world begins to spin when he moves and his ears ring. He tries to remember the last time he’s slept and then he’s faceplanting onto his bed.

The world goes dark and doesn’t come back until someone pounds on his door.

“Ray? You in there? Gav and I are gonna head out to the boardwalk in a bit, you want to come with?” It’s Michael. It takes a second to filter through the fog in his head but, yep, part of the reason he hadn’t been sleeping in the first place is at his door.

He tries to answer but his voice is laughably rough from sleep, ending in a gravelly “ _Idunnoman”_ On the other side of his door, Michael laughs. Ray hauls himself halfway upright and rubs the sleep out of his eyes, trying to process that he’s awake again.

“Dude, even _you_ don’t sleep ‘til four,” Michael calls through the door in disbelief. The adrenaline rush wakes Ray right up. Fuck, _fuck_! He has a meeting with Kdin in, oh, half an hour ago.

He jumps out of bed, frantically scanning the room for where he kicked off his shoes. Then he stuffs the last of Kdin’s payment into his bag, sending off an appropriately apologetic text to her in the hopes that this won’t end with his balls getting cut off. Meetings with major players are the kind of thing you don’t skip out on.

“Is that a yes?” comes from outside.

And Ray doesn’t have _time_ for this, so even though he feels like shit about it, he slings on his backpack, puts a box under each arm, and shoulders past Michael and through the door. “I can’t today,” he says while resolutely looking towards the front door and not back at his friend. “Sorry, I--there’s this meeting and I’m already late, so, yeah. Gotta go.”

His hand is turning the doorknob of the front door when Michael grabs him by the shoulder, tugging him around to face him. Ray’s stomach drops at the look on his face--jaw tight but something desperate, _worried_ in his eyes.

“What the fuck is this, Ray?” He gestures with his free hand at the boxes, the backpack. “Just--” He runs a hand through his hair, “What the _fuck?_ ”

Ray forces himself to meet Michael’s eyes. “I have a business thing, I just have to settle something, it’s really nothing.” He tries so hard to force his voice to sound normal and almost makes it. Everything is happening too fast, he’s still exhausted, and Michael’s expression just keeps falling.

“We can go to the boardwalk later if you’re busy right now,” Michael says so softly that it’s almost a whisper, “The ferris wheel will be all lit up, might be nice.” It’s a peace offering, a chance for Ray to salvage this. He needs to say yes, needs it so _bad,_ but he can’t find the words.

Instead he shakes his head, screwing his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to look into Michael’s, and steps out of the penthouse.

Michael doesn’t come after him.

\---

Kdin is waiting for him on the beach, sitting on a little towel. Apparently the office isn’t a safe bet for today, since when Ray vanishes they’ll watch where he’s been going for the days leading up to it. Though right now he’s less worried about Gavin finding Kdin’s office than he is of Kdin just straight up murdering him. There’s a pistol holstered to her thigh and she looks _pissed._

“You’re lucky I like you, Ray.” Her voice is a little cold, but not as bad as he’d thought it’d be. Since he’s not too sure how to answer that, other than feel grateful that his brain and other vital organs remain intact, he hands her the bag with the cash. She nods.

“I’d tell you to not let it happen again, but this is the last time we see each other.”

“Yep,” Ray eloquently agrees, focusing on the choppy waves hitting against the sand. It’s warm again, but the sky is a flat gray that makes him miss the sunny cold. Next to him, the tension in Kdin’s shoulders leeches out. He’s really fucking grateful for that. The last thing he needs right now is for more people to be mad at him.

“Do you know what you need to do tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I know what I have to do.”

“Everything’s gonna be alright, Ray.” She pulls him into a surprise hug, near about knocking him over. “You’ll make a new life even better than this one,” she murmurs into his shoulder, “and you will be happy.” For a second, her perfume drowns out the smell of ocean brine.

And he believes her.

\---

Kdin left after that, and Ray should’ve too. He still has those two boxes to drop off at the safehouse, needs to load the car up, and maybe answer the messages that are starting to pour into his phone. But he feels strangely weak, eyes burning, and that’s enough to keep him rooted in the sand.

He’s wasting the little time he has left. The sun’s already starting to go down; if he could see the ferris wheel from here, he wonders if they would’ve lit it up already. Gavin texted him to say that they tried to wait before leaving for the boardwalk, they really did, but eventually they’d left without him. Good, they don’t need Ray to just drag the mood down. He knows in the back of his head that it’s a pitiful excuse, but it keeps the shame at bay.

His phone buzzes.

‘ _Come home.’_ is all the message from Geoff reads, but it’s like a punch to the gut in a way Ray doesn’t want to dwell on. All his goddamn preparation for this and he forgot how much emotions could fuck up his resolve.  

Technically nothing has to happen. He could follow the original plan for the heist, bring all his stuff back from the safe house, and force all of this behind him.

But that won’t take away what happened to Gavin. Or the look on Michael’s face earlier, or how he freaked Ryan out bad enough for him to start playing psychiatrist, or literally every fucking way he messes things up for the crew on a daily basis.

He can't force himself to love the job anymore, and that's the most dangerous thing. Apathy gets people killed in a way that hatred can't. Hate can be utilized, channeled into something constructive. But if he can't care then there's just nothing left for him to give. The crew deserves more than that.

His phone goes off again. This time it's Jack, with ‘ _I made dinner!’_

God, Jack knows exactly which buttons to push.

\---

An hour later he’s slipping into the penthouse, stomach growling. He’s really fucking late, but he had to drop off the boxes and load up the car. Not everything’s in there, because it would be fucking stupid to leave all of his stuff out in the open in Los Santos. Also, he didn’t feel like it. There’ll be time during the heist.

Jack and his fucking eyes in the back of his head notice him immediately. And suddenly Ray finds himself ushered over to the couch, his backpack hung over one of the chairs in the kitchen, and there’s a warm grilled cheese sandwich in his hand.

“Dinner got cold,” Jack apologizes, “So I threw this together a bit ago so you’d have something fresh.”

“You’re my fucking hero, Jack,” he says around a huge bite of the sandwich. It’s the first thing he’s eaten all day. He looks up from the best meal ever for a second to scan the room, and not seeing Michael or Gavin, he relaxes a bit.

“Jack’s made three of those for you already,” Geoff pipes up from the armchair in the corner. He does _not_ look happy. “Stress cooking, since _you_ wouldn’t tell any of us where the hell you were.” He leans forward, doing his weird mob boss hands-under-the-chin thing, “Read the messages and didn’t even answer, huh? And you must’ve pissed Gavin off somehow, because he refused to go looking for you.”

“Let’s not,” Ryan says from behind the couch where he’s apparently materialized _holy shit._ “We all go off the radar now and then, and it turned out fine. Just put him on cleanup duty for the heist.”

“You’re only saying that because otherwise _you’re_ on cleanup duty for wasting that rocket launcher ammo,” Geoff gripes, but Ray only half hears him. Holy _shit,_ he had no idea Ryan covered for him on that. Ryan shoots him a look that tells him to keep his mouth shut before sitting heavy on the couch next to him. Jack fills in on his other side and suddenly Ray’s a Gents sandwich.

Geoff bitches and moans for a few more minutes, but it slowly fades out once they put a movie on. Ray’s mind kind of does the same. His stomach is full, the penthouse warm, and all of his worries are hidden behind a curtain of drowsiness.

He slumps against Jack and passes the fuck out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end! This chapter might've honestly been my favorite to write, I did my best to capture that weird sad nostalgia of moving and going through all of your old stuff


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like listening to music while reading, I'd recommend Oceans by Seafret for this one. I listened to it a LOT while writing this chapter. Also, one of my editing notes for this was 'take a shot every time Ray wakes up or falls asleep in this story'

 

If Ray wasn’t leaving tomorrow, he would burn down this shitty couch. Seriously. He wakes up to sunlight burning against his eyes and a truly impressive sore neck.

And also Gavin, sitting cross-legged on the coffee table. He’s tapping on his phone, probably that damn Crossy Road again, but he puts it away once he notices Ray’s eyes on him.

“You didn't have to ditch us just because you like Michael.” Gavin’s voice is clipped, cold enough for the words to send a chill down Ray’s spine. There’s not even a point in trying to deny it, because Gavin is a little bastard who’s gotten a bit too good at reading people.

“That wasn’t the point,” he splutters. It’s the truth, for once. “I had a--”

“Meeting,” Gavin interrupts, “Yeah, I know. And you’re goddamn _lucky_ I didn’t report it to Geoff, because he would’ve had your ass for this.”

“It was a personal thing, not that big of a--” Gavin holds up a hand to stop him, the absolute most infuriating gesture in his repertoire.

“You can lie to me about it later. I pried into your business with the Jeremy thing for nothing, so you get the benefit of the doubt for now. _But,_ ” He claps his hands together, “You were an ass to Michael yesterday, and I don’t normally get involved, but I spent four hours trying to cheer him up last night while he spent the whole time whining about _you_. It’s like we’re back in goddamn middle school for Christ’s sake!”  

“It wasn’t _about_ him,” Ray repeats, feeling like a broken record.

“You _made_ it about him when you got all closed off and weird,” Gavin snaps back.

“What do you _want_ from me?” He hears a door close down the hall and lowers his voice. “Do you want my-my fucking _permission_ or something? ‘Cause I don’t own Michael, so if you guys want to make a move just--”

Gavin’s brows furrow. “I mean, the girls and I talked about it, but--” He clears his throat, “But it’s you he likes, so. Either tell him you’re not interested or bloody do _something._ ”

Ray opens his mouth to answer, even though he has no idea what the fuck he’s supposed to say, but he gets interrupted by Geoff and Michael. So, okay, fate tossing the exact two people he doesn’t want to deal with right now into his lap. Cool.

Geoff throws a set of keys Ray’s head. His hands snap up just in time to grab them, a little burst of adrenaline chasing away any lingering drowsiness. Then Geoff pushes Michael forward a bit, who looks how Ray’s feeling right now. Confused, and possibly pissing his pants.

“ _Listen,”_ Geoff announces like anyone else was talking, “I am too tired for this shit.”

“Too _old,_ ” Gavin mumbles. Geoff snatches a pillow from the couch and tosses that too. Gavin squawks and ducks to let it hit the TV.

“I want you to go down to the garage, get in the car, and not come back until you’ve fixed your shit.”

“We can drive your car?” Gavin asks at the same time Ray says, “What shit?”

“No!” Geoff points a finger at Gavin, “I’m not letting any of you fuckers near those--Nah, I stole these off Michael.” And there was probably some scolding involved in that, because considering Michael is, well _alive,_ he gave the keys up voluntarily.

“He’s persuasive.” Michael shrugs. His face is back to neutral, but Ray can hear nerves in his voice. God, how _much_ has Ray fucked this up?

Geoff seems pretty keen on answering his silent question, because then he turns to Ray and goes, “We have a heist tomorrow, dude. You know, those things where we break the law and work _together_ ? So none of you can be weird with each other.” Ray honestly hadn’t _considered_ that all the strain he’d put on the others would make the job more dangerous. Suddenly he can’t stop thinking about it.

Geoff breaks him out the tangent his brain is leading him on. “I want you all back by dark so we can go over the plan one more time, try not to break too many laws, and don’t even fucking _breathe_ near the targets for tomorrow.”

Ray acutely feels the eyes of everyone in the room on him. “Sure thing, boss.”

Geoff moves to ruffle his hair, or possibly give him a noogie, but Ray swings over the back of the couch before that can happen, near about crashing into Michael. The guy takes a full step back at their proximity.

Okay, so that totally doesn’t bode well for Ray’s ‘leave them on a high note’ plan.

\---

The car ride is very, very awkward. Michael drives and does it too fast, earning himself dozens of angry honks for weaving in and out of traffic. He’d very pointedly put his bag in the passenger seat, so now Ray has Gavin to keep him company in the backseat. Gavin is chewing on his bottom lip, leg bouncing up and down.

“Both of you are being fucking weird around me,” Michael says matter-of-factly as he makes a left turn through a red light. Five seconds slower and a semi would’ve hit them. Nobody answers him.

So there’s the awkward car ride, and then an awkward lunch at Michael’s favorite sub place. Ray’s not sure why he’s got that fact in his brain, but he does make a bit of an effort to patch things up between them by buying Michael one of their signature size-of-your-face chocolate chip cookies. He accepts the peace offering, but that might’ve just been because chewing saved him from having to contribute to the strained conversation Ray and Gavin were having. For all of their earlier bravado in bickering earlier, apparently stupid, juvenile crushes bring out the pathetic side of people. They talk about the weather five times over, and twice about all the traffic.

The day passes in a horrible blur and he wants to scream because this isn’t how it was supposed to _happen_ . He wants his time left to be _good._ Both for the others to have something to look back on and for himself, too. Just because he’s going to leave doesn’t mean none of this matters to him. Every second is precious.

But his time’s already up.

\---

He’s on the roof again. After a final heist briefing and some grilled chicken, both courtesy of Geoff, he’d slunk up here after motioning for Michael to follow him. He hadn’t been sure if Michael would even bother to come after him, but here he is.

Michael’s only a foot away, sitting against the air conditioning unit. Yet it’s the furthest he’s ever felt away from him. They both stare up at the stars, muddled by the light of the city. God, they’re so fucking _small_ in this universe. He draws his knees up to his chest and becomes even more microscopic.

Sirens wail on the street beneath them. He sees Michael tense up in the corner of his eye, but it’s just the one car that’s gone as quickly as it came. Ray barely hears it, too occupied with trying to force words out of his throat. Apologies, mostly.

“I--” he starts, but his voice cuts out on him. “I have not been...great. To you, I mean.” The sound of his voice is foreign, too quiet and strained.

“Yeah, no shit,” Michael says with a huff, “You gonna look me in the eyes at any point? Or is my ugly mug too much for you?”

Ray uncurls a bit, forcing himself to meet Michael’s gaze. He realizes that it’s the first time in a while that he and Michael have really _looked_ at each other. Ray’s guts twist a bit when he takes in the dark circles under his eyes, how the faint light washes out his already pale complexion. Looks like Ray’s not the only one who hasn’t been sleeping much.

“None of this is about you,” he suddenly feels the need to say. “All the shit that’s been going on, that _will_ go on--none of that is because of you, I _promise._ ” He pushes as much sincerity into it as he can. The last thing he wants is for Michael to think that Ray left because of him.

“ _Will_ go on?” Michael presses and, shit, Ray shouldn’t have gone future tense with this. “Just what the hell are you planning, exactly?”  
“It’s nothing,” he tries to reassure. “I mean, anything can happen on heists, right? Just future-proofing my apology.” His palms are starting to sweat.

“Yeah,” Michael snorts, “Sure.” He moves to push himself up, but Ray panics and grabs his arm. Michael sinks back down again, giving him a long look.

“What do you want?” He winces at how it comes out, but it’s a fair question. Ray thinks he’d do damn near anything for Michael in this moment. It’s certainly what he owes him.

“Really? We’re going there?” Michael takes a deep breath. “Did it cross your mind that maybe I just want my best friends to stop acting like I’ve--I’ve--I don’t even _know_ what you guys think I did!”

Ray’s out of his depth. Fuck. _Fuck,_ he can’t do this. He’s spiraling out of control, a spaceship out of orbit, and everything he’s crashing into he _breaks._ He’s so small but the world is so _big_ and it’s pressing into him on all sides, smothering, and--

Michael moves closer, something raw and upset in his face that Ray would trade the universe to make go away. His hands rest on Ray’s shoulders, and something about the gesture makes part of him break apart under the warm weight.

“I want _you,_ ” Michael says in a choked voice. “I miss you and, it just--it’s like you’re not even _here_ anymore.”

Ray surges forward, hiding his face against Michael’s shoulder so he doesn’t have to see it crumble. Michael’s grip moves from his shoulders to wrap his arms around him, holding him tight. Ray mirrors the motion, holding onto Michael for what might be the last time.

“This isn’t how I pictured today going,” Ray says a bit helplessly.

“Me neither,” Michael breathes out, bringing up a hand to card through Ray’s hair. Pleasant chills run down his spine.

“You know, yesterday Gavin asked me if I wanted to join their relationship.” His hand stills in Ray’s hair. “Apparently it’s something the three of them have been talking about for a while.”

“What’d you say?” Ray asks into his shoulder. He knows the answer, he just doesn’t understand _why._

“I thought about it, but…” His hand moves to rub aimless circles into Ray’s back. He’s not sure Michael even realizes he’s doing it. “But there was someone else I wanted to take a chance on, y’know. Gavin said he’s cool with it.”

“Yeah?”

Michael pulls back and Ray finds himself missing the warmth. “I want you,” Michael repeats, and Ray’s pretty sure his heart stops. “If you’ll have me, of course,” he says with a little grin. Ray wants to stick a knife in whatever part of his brain registers that as cute.

See, Gavin had outright _told_ him that Michael liked him, but he’d dismissed it easily. Conjecture for Gavin, and wishful thinking for Ray. And yet here’s Michael, staring at him with a rare uncertainty in his face, and Ray doesn’t know what the fuck to do.

It’s selfish. This time tomorrow Ray will be long gone, and everyone will know he betrayed them. Better to let Michael down easy now instead of giving him false hope of them being _something._ But he wants this so _badly,_ feels the need resonating to his core. This is the only chance he has.

 _It’s selfish,_ and he hates himself so much the moment he leans in ever-so-slightly and Michael cups his cheek. A shudder runs through him. He moves forward, eyes fluttering shut. And then Michael’s lips are there against his own, warm and sure. Ray all but goes boneless against him, hands coming up to hold onto him again.

He feels his heart crack under the pressure of everything he’s not saying. But he lets Michael wash that feeling away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh shit! In the first draft, Michael and Ray getting together was one of the first events in the story, but it didn't work well with the rest of the plot. That made re-writing this a real challenge since the scene changed almost entirely, so hopefully I did alright. Just one more chapter to go!


	10. Chapter 10

Ray wakes up first. It’s a wonder he slept at all, really. They’d stayed up on the roof for hours, lapsing into long stretches of comfortable silence where they just stared up at the sky, only to be in each other’s space again minutes later. He’d been about to drop by the time they made their way downstairs, but his drowsiness faded away into nothing when his head hit the pillow. Michael hadn’t gone back to his own room, instead sliding into bed next to Ray and wrapping his arms around him. Like he was something precious.

So he’s back to where he was a few hours ago. Wide awake, Michael’s arms tight around his waist. Ray shifts a bit so his weight isn’t completely crushing him and Michael grunts in annoyance, hiding his face in the back of Ray’s head. Ray stills and tries to memorize the feeling of Michael’s breath tickling his neck.

He could stay here. Lie next to Michael until Geoff comes knocking on the door to tell them to hurry the fuck up, trade easy jokes over the comms during the heist, come back here after the heist and start it all over again.

But he didn’t go this far with the plan just to flake out in the end. Kdin had told him that the crew would always be here if he ever changed his mind. But they both knew that was wishful thinking. Michael will hate him for this. Any time he hears his name the memories will just be painful. Ray will become a taboo here, and if he ever comes crawling back no one will be happy about it. And even with the crushing weight of that knowledge, he still feels the pull to run away.

So he slides out of Michael’s grip, takes one last look at his face serene in sleep, and starts getting ready for the heist.

\---

The garage is a buzz of activity. He’s sitting on the hood of Jack’s car watching the procession and running his escape route through his head over and over. His rifle rests heavy in its case against his leg and he wonders how no one’s figured out what he’s about to do. He always keeps his rifle case on his back, his bag of ammo at his hip. But today he has a bulky duffel bag with the rest of the stuff in it digging into his back. It feels like he’s got a flashing sign strapped to him that says ‘ _Be suspicious of me!’_

But the others are too fired up by now to pay attention to much else other than the revenge they’re about to dole out on East Side. They’re even rowdier than they usually are during the pre-heist. Normally that would annoy him, but today he lets the energy wash over him and he feels kind of...fond watching them all. He wonders if this is how the Gents feel sometimes.

They’re rolling out in waves of two. First it’ll be Michael and Geoff hitting a little row of stores, then Jack and himself, and finally Gavin and Ryan to start drawing away heat the others pick up. From there the logistics are too complicated for him to keep track of. Ray hopes they don’t call off the heist when they realize he’s missing. They need to take out East Side before they get too powerful, and Ray is mostly supposed to just run support in this heist anyway.

He slides off of Jack’s car, resting his bag and rifle by his bike. According to the clock on the wall, the first wave is rolling out in a few minutes. Michael’s off in the corner toying with his minigun. Ray almost doesn’t register himself walking over there.

Neither of them are huge on goodbyes. They’re too weighty, too _final._ Maybe they’ll die during any given heist, maybe they won’t. So normally they just shout stupid jokes out of car windows, maybe even flip each other off with a grin if they’re feeling generous.

Today’s different. Partially because he wants to kiss Michael and _can,_ partially because this is the last time they’ll see each other. If there was ever a cause for a goodbye between them, this is it.

Ray doesn’t indulge either impulse. Well, he almost goes for the former, but at the last second he rests his forehead against Michael’s instead. Let last night hold their first and last kisses. He and Michael lock eyes. This close he can see the pale freckles spotted across his face, the way the lights reflect in his brown eyes. For a second he’s transfixed by watching Michael’s pupils dilate.

He pulls back before Michael can ask what the hell he’s doing. Because honestly, Ray doesn’t have an answer.

“Have fun,” he tells him, “don’t get shot.”

“Says the one who got shot on our last big heist,” Michael scoffs, but he chucks some extra body armor into the back of his car.

“The sun was in my eyes,” he shoots back, “couldn’t Matrix my way out of it in time.” Michael rolls his eyes.

“Time to go!” Geoff calls from behind them. Ray freezes. Michael’s already snapping back into action mode, doing a quick once-over of his supplies. He feels a stupid bubbling up of panic. This is it, _this is it._

“Seriously,” he says in a rush, “if you died I’d wear a really ugly suit to your funeral and you’d be so mad that you’d come back as a zombie and obviously we’d have to kill you again to keep it from becoming a zombie apocalypse and--”

“Ray,” Michael interrupts, “chill.” He gives Ray a quick peck on the lips, pats him on the shoulder, and gets into his car.

And the heist begins.

\---

He and Jack finish up their first location without a hitch. Ray doesn't even need to shoot. The whole thing feels kind of surreal, honestly. All the voices filtering through his comms sound like they're coming through deep water.

There’s a healthy amount of gunfire and explosions and sirens and god knows what else coming from the others, but things are crystal calm for them here. The shop owners gave in with little resistance.

“We’re good to go,” comes Jack’s voice both from his earpiece and down on the street.

Ray disassembles his rifle methodically. Can't look to eager to leave, but he also can't slow Jack down. He climbs off the roof with an iron grip on the ladder rungs and strides past Jack as calmly as he can manage to get on his bike. The other man doesn’t say a word when Ray wrestles both the duffle bag and his rifle case on his back, but leaves his ammo bag on the ground. Ray’s heart hammers in his throat anyway, waiting for Jack to catch on, try to stop him--

“Good luck out there, Ray,” Jack calls when he revs his bike.

“Right back at ‘ya,” Ray forces out, and then he’s _gone._

The bike shakes underneath him with how fast he accelerates. He flies out of the alley, rocketing down the street. When he can’t see Jack’s car behind him anymore, he swings to the right so fast his leg almost brushes the asphalt and starts heading back the way he came on another street.

The ride to the safehouse is kind of a blur. The streets are quiet but the sounds of chaos are still roaring through his earpiece. Sounds like they’re all having fun, at least. He can hear Gavin and Ryan whooping about something, which probably directly translates to carnage.

When he gets to the safehouse he tunes everything else out. The house doesn’t have a garage, so he’s forced to make trips back and forth to the driveway. Hopefully he doesn’t look too shady. It’d be too ironic to be funny if the police were called. Though, with the amount of robberies, explosions, and gunfire kicking off in the city, he doubts they’d respond to some random guy loading up a car with an armful of granola bars.

He packs fast, kind of surprising himself with how quickly his stuff fills the car. The boxes end up haphazardly stacked, some he just ditches altogether and dumps their contents into the nooks and crannies left.

Before he leaves, he puts a little note on his bike that says “ _Property of Fake AH”_ on the seat in case any hotshots want to go for a joyride. Not that it’ll stop most of those knuckleheads, but it leaves him with a cleaner conscience. He’d liked that bike.

He pulls out the new phone Kdin gave him, turning the volume up so the GPS can give him directions. Sounds are still coming steady from his earpiece.This far away from the heist, it might as well be a movie playing in his ear. He backs out of the driveway, taking a look up and down the quiet street. The dreamlike quality of all of this shit still hasn’t gone away.

This is real. He’s actually _leaving._ With his fancy new papers from Kdin, he’s not even a criminal anymore. Just some random guy driving by with Texas plates. His sniper rifle is buried on the floorboards underneath boxes of clothes and comic books. Maybe the people in the other cars think he’s helping a friend move.

Maybe they think he’s just a guy going home.

\---

At some point between the safehouse and the highway, he’d taken his earpiece out. Now it’s resting by his phone, just loud enough for him to hear it over the GPS’ directions. They’ve asked him to check in twice. Both times he’d answered quickly, trying to remember where he’s supposed to be. If he’d stuck to the plan, his part would almost be complete. He’s barely out of the city, but by the time the others wrap up the heist he should be long gone.

And then he hears a shout of panic from the comm. He shoves it back in his ear, tightening his grip on the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. Please, please let it be nothing.

“Mogar is down!” Geoff cries and Ray’s heart lurches in his chest. Oh fuck, _Michael. Michael’s down._ He tries to steady his breathing and fails.

The others flood in with panicked questions. Ray thinks his throat might be squeezed too tight to join in. Then Geoff’s voice comes back after a terrifying minute. “Guys, fuck, okay--I think he’ll be alright.” Ray relaxes a tiny fraction. “He got grazed by a bullet--I think it knocked him off balance? Anyway, he took a header to a corner of a building and he’s kind of out of it, not sure if we need a hospital, but he should be okay. Don’t think it’s _too_ bad. Could definitely use some backup, like, right fucking now though.”

Ryan and Gavin confirm that they’re on the way. And Jack starts running Geoff through a list of symptoms to check for, saying some really scary shit like _fracture_ and _hemorrhage._ Ray feels so _useless,_ suddenly. His crew needs him, _Michael_ needs him, and here he is running away. A few more miles and his comm will start losing signal. And yet he still doesn’t turn around.

“I think Mi--Mogar’s a little more with it,” comes Geoff’s voice. The ambient gunfire sounds further away. “Backup’s here. Beardo, Brownman, you two good?” Jack affirms that he is. Ray barely manages to force whatever’s in his throat out of the way to answer.

“Brownman’s fine.” Static briefly cuts through the symphony of the heist. He doesn’t have much time left before he’ll have to ditch the earpiece.

“Ray?”

It’s Michael. The sound of his voice, quiet and so confused, it sends him halfway into the other lane and back again. He barely notices the honks from the cars around him. _Fuck,_ he can’t do this. But he has to.

“Whas-What’s happening?” Michael asks. The others start answering him, trying to figure out how much of the heist he remembers. But chunks of their answers keep getting lost to static.

“Everyone shut up for a second,” Ray cuts in. Miracle of miracles, they listen to him. “Michael? I’m going to tell you something and I want you to remember it, okay?”

“What’s happening?” Michael repeats. The syllables are less slurred than they were before. If it weren’t for the anxiousness thrumming through Ray’s chest, he would be relieved about that.

“You’re really important to me. Important to everyone. And I, uh, I love you. Don’t forget that.” He pushes the gas pedal a little harder, sneaking a glance at Los Santos in his rearview mirror. It looks pretty in the sunset, as close to ethereal as a shithole like it can be.

“You love me,” makes its way through the haze of static. Michael says it almost reverently, like it’s the most important secret in the world. The others are muttering to each other, probably trying to figure out what the hell’s gotten into Ray, but it doesn’t _matter_ anymore.

“Yeah, Michael, I do.” His voice cracks a bit, but hopefully that gets lost to the failing connection.

“Nice,” Michael murmurs, still dazed. Ray waits for a horrible second to hear if there’s anything else Michael wants to say.

Instead, Geoff’s voice drowns everything else out. “Brownman? _Ray?_ What the hell is going on?!”

Ray takes a deep breath, squaring back his shoulders and trying to blink away his misty eyes. He rolls down the window, tugging out his earpiece and holding it in front of himself with one hand.

“This is Brownman, logging off.”

He throws the earpiece out of the window. Within seconds it’s been crushed into pieces by a semi. Ray turns his gaze back to the road. _It’s over._

He drives away from the setting sun and doesn’t let up on the gas until the Los Santos skyline is a pinprick in the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! This story taught me a lot about longer stories and writing in general, and I'm really hyped to work on new stuff now. Thank you very, very much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> With a few adjustments this could've been its own self-contained h/c story, but alas there's a lot more shit to go down. And in case anyone missed it in the summary, this has all already been written, so chapters will be going up every day! That way I have some time to get everything formatted and I can spend more time checking for any errors. Thank you for reading!


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